Author Archives: Joe Queenan

Remember when a billion dollars still seemed like a lot of money? Neither does anybody else. Consider: A newspaper revered for its ability to articulate the deepest concerns of the American people reported that the government’s controversial TARP program could result in massive losses to taxpayers as a result of financial legerdemain. The putatively terrifying story, appearing under the headline ...

Not long ago, a photograph of Liz Claiborne CEO William McComb jammed into a seat in coach class appeared in the The Wall Street Journal. The article described how CEOs were forgoing trips on private planes and even giving the thumbs-down to first class and business class as a way of cutting costs. Such selflessness was bound to get the ...

The decision by the federal government to bail out the Mafia but allow the Cosa Nostra to go under has left investors bewildered and enraged. Ever since it became apparent last week that neither the Mafia nor the Cosa Nostra could survive without a massive infusion of capital, Americans have waited with baited breath to see if the feds would ...

Sometimes the solution to a seemingly insurmountable problem is staring us right in the face. Beethoven used to bust flimsy harpsichords into smithereens until somebody hit on the practical solution of the grand piano. Holland would get flooded every winter until somebody dreamed up the idea of the dike. China suffered the depredations of marauding barbarians for centuries until it ...

Two years ago, Jacob Alexander, one-time chief executive of Comverse Technology, fled to Namibia rather than face charges that he conspired to backdate stock options. If convicted of all 35 counts, Alexander could get sent to the slammer for 25 years. At present, the U.S. government is seeking to extradite its quarry from his base in Southwest Africa. According to ...

Newspaper readers instinctively turn to the same section every morning. For many it is the sports, for some the financial section, some actually start on page one with the bad news about the war, the stock market, Medicare. Not me. When I get my newspaper, the first thing I turn to is the crackpot essay on the op-ed page. Whether ...

Anyone lucky enough to see the recent public television broadcast of the New York Philharmonic’s historic concert in Pyongyang can see why there has been so much contro versy lately about the rising influence of sovereign wealth funds. As maestro Lorin Maazel and the gang did their best to lift the spirits of the audience with some of the most ...

I rate shareholders, meddlesome hedge fund managers, know-it-all private equity guys and even the man in the street often act as if being a chief executive officer is a day at the beach, a stroll in the park, a picnic. This is a misperception, perhaps a deliberate one. CEOs, it just so happens, have to deal with shrinking markets, tumbling ...

Every once in a while, somebody comes along with a theory so brilliant, so iconoclastic and yet so blitheringly obvious that the rest of us sit around grumbling, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Such a theory is “followership,” a bold concept delineated in the new book Followership: How Followers Create Change and Change Leaders. The brainchild of Barbara Kellerman, ...

The day the Fox Business Channel debuted, the normally abrasive talk show host Bill O’Reilly advised anchors Neil Cavuto and Alexis Smith to “have fun with it.” Since then, the news team has taken the advice in the spirit it was offered, serving up a frothy mix of happy-face banter and chummy interviews. This reflects Fox’s strategy to make its ...